We couldn’t be more proud of Sylvia M. Montero, our Board President, for being an exemplary model of what our mission is all about.

Sylvia continues to invest in the Lower East Side, the community where she grew up as a young Latina who had moved to Nueva York from a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico. Today, her leadership as Board President and generous and dynamic community member sets an unforgettable example of just how much a settlement house can mean to any one of the 7,400 New Yorkers we serve each year.

Sylvia and her family migrated to New York’s Lower East Side in 1957, the peak year for Puerto Ricans to make the voyage to the island of Manhattan. Her journey to ensure an education funded by scholarships, a teaching degree built on an incredible work ethic, and her swift but sure transition to Human Resources at Pfizer are outlined in a profile by Sparta Living.

To read more about how Sylvia became one of the pharmaceutical industry’s highest ranking Latinas, check out the profile below!